


Iridescentia

by jjokkiri



Category: EXO (Band)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Angels, Alternate Universe - Supernatural Elements, Angst, Angst and Porn, Lots of character death, M/M, blood warning, supernatural apocalypse au
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-09-01
Updated: 2016-09-01
Packaged: 2018-08-12 07:54:25
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,840
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7926757
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/jjokkiri/pseuds/jjokkiri
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Nothing burns brighter than an angel’s ashes, but nothing killed Park Chanyeol.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Iridescentia

**Author's Note:**

> Written for Kayla, who only told me that she wanted Krisyeol and that she was okay with angst and character death... and then told me to go off on it. Although I'm pretty sure she didn't actually allow me _this_ much character death. I hope she, and everyone else, enjoys regardless!

A fairy tale starts with _once upon a time_ , but what does a story without happiness start with? Anything, maybe, but this one starts like this: it felt like a thousand years since ground-level Earth was an inhabitable environment; since the thickest of poisonous smog filled the air, from the ground to the clouds. The year is 2704 and the world is overrun with darkness.

Park Chanyeol is twenty-one when he can't remember what the sun looked like and he doesn't think he can recall human features, because they all wear gas masks everywhere. It's never really mattered to him, but looking at humanity often made him forget that he wasn't one of them.

For millennia, the humans lived alongside angels and they knew not of their existence. Some believed in angels, but if they ever did, then they had no reason to keep such hope, now. _For if angels were real, why did they suffer?_

Chanyeol wished he knew how to answer for his own kind.

Earth was hardly inhabitable. A lack of resources left a majority of the population to die and the future looked grim for the ones who survived, even the supernatural who lived among the dying humans. There was a scarcity of food and water, but the residents of the dying wasteland give little care to that very fact; it ran itself to practical insanity with the hopes that one day, the sun would rise again.

And maybe, something would be better.

It wouldn't, though. Everyone knew that, but only a handful of citizens accepted the fact: scientists, who discovered this impending doom, and the angels who knew that nothing got better on its own.

There was small group of activists from bigger cities found themselves leading raids of the properties of other cities; rationing portions to give to their own kind. The leaders of these groups banded together at the start, with the hopes of their past would keep them together, but one by one, the scientists betrayed one another——desperation causing slaughter in the safe houses.

The world hadn't been a safe place for far too long.

 

 

 

The year is 2706: Park Chanyeol built a new home for humanity.

He led a group of wounded citizens to safety in a quiet underground safe ground——a place he never thought he would ever return to, after he'd left it at thirteen years of age: Irides, the underground city.

Irides, better known to humans as the underground city, was a series of pathways, linking all the cities in the country to one another. It was a secret to the public, for only angels knew of its existence. The humans who ventured too far were scorched alive after days of staying there, for the light under the ground was too bright.

It's where he was born, or at least where all angels were brought into the world. It was a safe haven for the blessed. Park Chanyeol was a saviour to the people he brought under his protection.

Chanyeol swore his guidance and support to his people, because only under the blessing of an angel could one withstand such light, and they love him, for he is their only mean of survival. The angel overlooked the city for as long as he survived; allowed others to lean on him for the support that they would never find in the real world, now.

All they need to know is that they’re safe and sound, and Chanyeol doesn’t think there’s anything more selfish than that, but he’s shielding them from the cruelty of the world——he could be blamed for that. All they need is a safe place to live with bright lights and enough food to last them a lifetime. Disguised as a human, Chanyeol provided them with all of that and they had nothing to worry about.

He’s always assumed that humans preferred to live in the bliss of ignorance, anyway.

They remember him: gentle features, bright smile, a mess of brown hair and a tall lean figure as their saviour. That’s all they think of him and nothing more. They greet him in the halls of the underground paths on their way to another closed off city and he smiles at them, because there’s nothing more he can do.

He never does tell them how he managed to keep their lights burning bright for so long. They never really care, either. Behind closed doors, though, Chanyeol choked back his tears because if laws existed in a world like this, no one would be under his protection.

If angels still graced the skies, then Chanyeol would be fallen.

Because nothing burned brighter than an angel’s ashes.

 

 

 

Chanyeol remembers the first angel he’d met after everyone had been ushered down into the underground city——bright eyes and a cheeky smile. Byun Baekhyun was feisty and liked to fight, but every angel liked to fight——for everyone was always out for their blood. He’s the only angel that Chanyeol knew who fought with daggers and grinned brightly with blood stains on his cheeks when he flopped down onto Chanyeol’s bed, late at night.

Baekhyun’s voice still echoed in the back of his mind, years after the last time he sees the man, loudly ranting about how daggers were so much better than guns because of the thrill which came with close-handed combat.

The older man was like a brother to him and he had the sense and wit of one of the elders in the sky——probably could have become one, if the world above them hadn’t ended. Baekhyun also did everything with an elegance that he couldn’t seem to describe. It was something in the way he held himself and Chanyeol never really understood how, in the middle of a ruined world, someone could still be so noble.

He also remembers the way that Baekhyun’s pale skin contrasted against the streaks of blood running down his hands, lacking that elegance he always held. He remembers the way Baekhyun held his hand tightly and with his last breath, whispered: _“When I turn to ash, burn me for the sake of the city.”_

Because that’s what angels did. They turned to ashes when their lives came to an end. It’s the most heartbreaking thing to Chanyeol——the ashes, they leave nothing for the sake of memories.

Chanyeol doesn’t like to remember that he cried when he burned the ashes of the only man he’d trusted for the sake of a city he built up from the ground.

 

 

 

After Baekhyun, he met Oh Sehun. A tall, slim man with sharp features——as sharp as his mind. Sehun defended himself with guns, alike to Chanyeol and the angels click quickly. Meeting another angel so soon after Baekhyun’s death, Chanyeol found himself relying on the younger man for many things——because who could he trust if he couldn’t trust his own kind?

Between some random nights under the sheets, falling in love with Sehun and some other nights firing their handguns against targets lined across the walls, Chanyeol finds that he couldn’t have been any more wrong about the other angel.

He remembers the night he finds that Sehun betrayed them——easily handing out secret information about their base, the people who lived there and the locations of their storages to other cities that couldn’t ration living like they could. The thievery had increased since he’d begun speaking to Sehun, but he’d brushed it off as nothing, because they could have lived with the loss.

But, he remembers the fear that coursed through his mind when he was violently awoken from a slumber to find the black metal of Sehun’s handgun pressed to his forehead. He should have known better than to trust someone else.

“Angels are the easiest to fool,” Sehun had told him, lips curling into a wicked smile, “They’re more naïve than humans. They’re so trusting, just like you.”

What made his blood thrum, however, was that Sehun showed no regret when Chanyeol wrestled him to the sheets and turned the gun back against him.

He was the guardian of a city——nothing killed Park Chanyeol.

He still remembers the pain of heartbreak, when he pulled the trigger and Sehun’s blood had splattered all over his sheets; he remembers the guilt in his gut when he pulled the sheets off of his bed and tore them apart, pretending that it wasn’t blood.

But, he doesn’t regret the day that he set Sehun’s ashes on fire for his city to thrive.

 

 

 

It’s another two years before Chanyeol meets another angel. Their numbers have dropped drastically since the end of the world——so much that they needed to shield their identities from the world. But, any angel could recognize another from the aura which shone brightly around them. That was invisible to the human eye.

The angel he meets is a tall man——taller than he is——with sharp eyes and blond hair. Wu Yifan is a kind man and it shows from their first meeting, when he catches Chanyeol as the drunken angel had returned from another year of mourning the death of his best friend. Four years did nothing to erase Baekhyun from his memories——only seemed to make the memories burn brighter.

Yifan listened to his tears when Chanyeol couldn’t believe that he was crying and Yifan assured him when he hated himself for not being able to run a city, properly.

“Don’t be ridiculous, you’re the first angel to ever manage this and you’ve done it for over five years,” Yifan told him, gently. He knows Yifan is right, but he doubted himself.

Wu Yifan liked to use his hands, but Chanyeol’s always told him that his hands couldn't protect him from bullets and knives. To that, Yifan only kissed his forehead and laughed, quietly, “We're angels. We don't use weaponry.”

All Chanyeol does is hide his gun under the layers of his clothing and smile.

 

 

 

“Do you believe in magic?” Chanyeol asked the man sitting on his bed, shrugging his jacket off of his shoulders and throwing it on one of the chairs in his room.

The meeting he’d returned from drained his energy——mingling with a group of humans who called themselves his trusted advisors was always stressful. They spoke of nonsense, and the only things Chanyeol really cared about was the reports on the lights throughout the city——how much longer they’d last, before he needed to make another sacrifice of his own kind.

This meeting brought no smiles with the reports of several blackouts in nearby cities and Chanyeol’s fidgeting hands tensed underneath the table, when they’d mentioned it. On the way back through the connected hallways to his room, Chanyeol found himself high on nerves——they had a week before the lights in Irides burned out.

It shows that he’s stressed from the way he walks, and he knows that Yifan picks it up easily. He’s rewarded with a laugh and Yifan turned to him with an arched eyebrow.

“Aren’t we made of magic?” the response came as a whisper in his ear and Yifan’s arms wrapped around his waist. It still surprises him how fast the other man makes it across the room just to be with him.

“Are we?”

Yifan chuckled and hummed quietly in his ear, “We’re angels——isn’t that what humans call magical?”

“We’re what humans call traitors,” Chanyeol answered, dryly. “For not saving them when the world ended.”

There’s a moment of silence before Yifan inhaled his scent, softly, “What happened at the meeting? Is there something wrong, Chanyeol? You don’t usually speak like this.”

He hates that Yifan knew him so well.

“Forget about it, I need a distraction,” came the clipped reply and Yifan tightened his grip, not pleased with the answer.

“Is that what you need or what you want?”

“I _need_ a distraction; I _want_ you.”

It’s the only way to get Yifan off his case, and as always, it works. His pleaded distractions come in the form of open mouthed kisses to his lips and heavy hands showing him the way to his bed. They fall to the sheets with a grunt. Chanyeol’s distractions from his problems are the way Yifan’s hands travel his body and tug his clothes off of his body and discard them on the floor.

The way Yifan kisses him is a reminder that, in this world, they only have each other. It’s a reminder, as Yifan bends him over and slides gentle fingers into him and stretches him out, that anything at any second could destroy them——in the same way that Yifan slowly wrecks Chanyeol’s body with pleasure, but still so, so different.

Yifan’s always been good with his hands.

But, what matters the most is when pain shoots through Chanyeol’s body and Yifan is slowly thrusting his hips against and pushing his erection into Chanyeol——ever so gentle and afraid of hurting him. That’s a reminder that Yifan loves him.

And when pleasure overrides their bodies to the point of a mind-blowing orgasm, they fall to one another’s sides with soft breathing.

They never do tell one another that they love each other, because there’s just something about _them_ that ensures they know. They don’t need to hear it to know, and that’s Chanyeol’s favourite dynamic about them.

Chanyeol’s distraction comes in the form of the blond man’s naked glory falling asleep next to him, even breathing lulling him into a softer state of mind——a serenity that promises him that everything’s going to be okay, if he just hopes.

But, hope is that foolish thing that humans hold onto. Chanyeol is no fool.

Yifan proved himself a worthy distraction and someone who could take his mind off everything that bothered him——but it doesn’t last, because as soon as the high is gone, everything comes back to him. The impending downfall of an empire he single-handedly built in an attempt to save mortals. It’s stupid, when he thinks about it now——to protect those who weren’t his own.

Yet, he’s an angel and angels don’t break the promises they make. _They can’t._

But, if anything in this world was reasonable, then who would ever fall under the protection of someone like Chanyeol——an angel who watched the man he called his best friend turn to ashes, and the same angel who pulled the trigger on another in his own bed?

He swore to protect them——to let them live——and an angel’s pride is the sole thing that keeps them alive.

There’s a quiet reminder in that back of his mind that tells him: _if you just hope, it’s all going to be okay. Everything will be better._

He breaks that silly hope with shaky hands reaching under his pillow and touching cold gunmetal.

He finds the answer to the question he’d asked Yifan when his hands find their comfortable position against the gun——magic doesn’t exist, because if it did, then they wouldn’t have to do things against their own will. Magic would solve it all——at least in the ideals of a human, it would. But, they’re angels.

No matter how twisted, since the fall of the sky and the end of the world, they were still angels. They don’t have those kinds of ideals and they’re not meant to think in ways that humans do. They’re not meant to fall in love——they’re destined to protect the things they swear to protect. And Park Chanyeol never promised his guard to Wu Yifan with his life.

He’s done this a million times——he’s so used to it, but he shouldn’t be. _Angels don’t use weaponry._ He breaks his foolish hopefulness and Yifan’s trust when he pulls the trigger of his gun and suddenly, there’s a mess of blood on his sheets again——and the lifeless body of someone he loved.

But, he shouldn’t be feeling the guilt that he does, because Chanyeol never swore to protect the man he loved.

He’s sure he doesn’t need to say it, because even without him saying it, he hopes that Yifan understands.

He hopes that he doesn’t need to say anything for Yifan to know that he’s sorry.

But, dead men can’t forgive, and neither can the ashes of an angel.

 

 

 

His calloused thumb dragged itself against the lighter and it ignited a quiet flame. The dark haired man brought the small flame down to the small pile of ashes: Yifan’s ashes. Light immediately flooded the halls again and there's a quiet relief in the pit of his stomach, knowing he protected humankind.

Chanyeol was a saviour to the people he promised to protect, but Chanyeol stood alone in a small brightly lit room, the realization hit him slowly as he capped the bottle of ashes (it’d last them another few years).

He’s regretting the second he pulled the trigger on the man he loved.

And the story ends like this: _Park Chanyeol is twenty-eight when he realizes that he’s the last of his kind._


End file.
